


A Tale of Three

by NevillesGran



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:13:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/NevillesGran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conrad is confused, Christopher is confident, and Millie is contemplating double-homicide, or at least locking both stupidly attractive boys in a broom closet until they make out. Make up. Same difference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of Three

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone on Tumblr who provided me with the details necessary to make everyones age and appearance accurate. I cannot actually find that post anymore, but if you see this and you answered my questions, you know who you are and you know that you are awesome. )You're also awesome if you meet neither of those conditions.) Also, I'm sorry the title is so lame.

Conrad was confused.

He knew one thing: he liked Christopher. If he’d brought it up with the girls, they would have giggled and said he _like_ liked Christopher, and the word “crush” would probably have come up. Conrad, with his mother’s voice echoing in his head, was firmly against the word “crush,” though he resented it more because it made him sound like he was twelve rather than for any of the strident feminist reasons his mother could not doubt have listed.

He had known he liked Christopher since Snowmageddon, the informal, never-used-in-front-of-Gabriel nickname for the girls-versus-boys, all-magic-allowed snowball fight after the blizzard in the last week of January. Sometime during the stage where most of the players was scattered around the grounds, trying to sneak up on everyone else, Conrad had come across Elizabeth and Henrietta cornering a cowering Christopher. He’d dropped his invisibility spell and whipped up a wall of ice between them and the girls, and crouched by his friend.

“What are you doing?” he whispered urgently.

Christopher, cheeks rosy with cold against his pale skin and dark hair damp with snow and sweat, presented his wrist with a scowl. “They got silver on me.”

Conrad bit his lip to hold in a chuckle. One of the girls—he bet Henrietta—had sacrificed a silver charm bracelet to the cause, and bewitched it with a strong sticking spell so Christopher couldn’t just pull it off. “I wonder how long she’s wanted to try that?” he wondered aloud.

Christopher’s fine cheekbones looked particularly arched over his resentful frown. “Just get it off, please, Grant. That wall won’t stay up forever.”

That was true, at least. Conrad had pulled it into a sort of dome around their tree when he’d knelt down, but the girls were attacking from both sides. It wouldn’t hold for long.

“Fine,” he said, and pulled at the bracelet, working at the spell as he did. It was difficult to do that and hold up the ice against the girls. “How’d they sneak up on you?”

“Elizabeth threw a snowbank at me,” Christopher replied, staring past Conrad’s head as if he were bored. “And Henrietta snuck up while I was temporarily blinded.” A crack appeared in the igloo wall, and he gripped Conrad’s arm urgently. “Hurry up!”

Conrad snickered, gave the spelled bracelet one last yank, and fell backwards into the snow. Above their heads, the ice shattered from the tree outward, falling in shards that were already melting into merely frigid water. But the bracelet had come off in Conrad’s hand, so Christopher squeezed his arm even tighter and teleported them both to the safety of the boys’ base camp.

Bernard barely glanced up when they appeared. He was leaning against a fortified snow wall, reading a book about economics. “Does the battle rage on?”

Christopher let go of Conrad’s arm and stood, drying his clothes with a thought. “Viciously. Henrietta’s getting sneaky.”

“Mm-hm.” Bernard turned a page. He was mostly out here on the condition that everybody joined in his ongoing petition to Gabriel to buy the Castle a stock ticker. “You probably shouldn’t have eaten her last bar of chocolate.”

After that it had descended to cheerful bickering, culminating in Christopher convincing Bernard to help mount an attack on the girls’ base on the opposite side of the grounds. But first, he had turned back to Conrad and pulled him to his feet, drying his clothes as well, with a rueful grin and laughter in his eyes. “Anyway, thanks for the save, Grant.” Even through their two combined layers of mittens, Conrad had been able to feel the warmth of his hand, and smiled back as he thought, _well, crap_.

But absolutely nothing else was clear to him. To start with, he wasn’t even sure if homosexuality existed in Twelve. Nobody ever mentioned it. Nobody had ever spoken of it much back in Stallsbury, either, but at least people had been in the news sometimes as advocates, and there was a nice female couple down the road from the bookshop who everyone agreed were a very sweet pair. Here, Jason and Bernard talked about girls sometimes, when there was no chance whatsoever that Gabriel—or worse, Miss Rosalie—would overhear. Christopher joined in but always changed the subject if the conversation encroached on whom he might be interested in. Everyone—including, unfortunately, Conrad—knew the answer to that was Millie; they were just waiting for Christopher to figure it out himself. Conrad mostly stayed quiet during these discussions and let the others tease him about being young and innocent, even though he was only youngest by a year. He occupied his mind by wondering if he could convince Christopher to pose for some photographs. He thought he probably could—Christopher was a little vain, and Conrad could, theoretically, use more practice taking photos of possibilities…

But that was as close as he could think of to asking Christopher on any sort of date. Not that Christopher would have said yes, because he was clearly in love with Millie. If only he would stop mooning over her and do something about it, make it official and put a firm end to Conrad’s nagging daydreams. Millie sat between them in the classroom, and Conrad had lost count of the number of times he’d glanced sideways to find Christopher staring at her with that face that looked bored but meant he was incredibly interested. Sometimes, their eyes met over her head, and Conrad had to glance away with a bright red blush before Christopher thought he was staring the same way at him. Which he was, but he prided himself at least on being more subtle than Christopher was about Millie.

It was ironic, then, that Millie was the only once Conrad could safely address with his question of whether men ever liked men in Series Twelve. She was from another world, too, he figured, and would at least understand the struggle of not knowing. He was as casual as possible, said he’d read about it in one of the books in the library, one of the ones from another series, and it had gotten him thinking. But she had just replied with a vague, “Hmmm…I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Christopher?” which he obviously couldn’t do. So he had nodded and said, “All right,” and made an excuse to leave in just as thick a cloud of confusion as he’d started with. It was hopeless.

.

.

Christopher was confident, about a great many things. He took for granted that he was very good at magic. He was certain that, when Gabriel _finally_ retired, he would be ready to take over as Chrestomanci. And he had decided, a couple months ago, that he was definitely going to marry Millie. He knew nobody in the Castle thought he’d realized this yet, but he was really just biding his time, in hope that he would figure out how to communicate his conviction to the Goddess herself. He was not, he had to admit, entirely certain that she would agree to the proposal. He _thought_ she would, but Millie could be tricky.

He was also a little unsure about Grant these days. The other boy seemed quieter than normal, and Christopher had caught him staring into space at least three times in one lesson with Flavian. Normally Grant was the one paying attention while Christopher got distracted by the way Millie’s dress curved around her caramel skin, and how the sun brought the faintest blond tint to her soft-looking brown hair. (Thank goodness she had moved back permanently from boarding school for some _proper_ magical education.)

When he thought about it, Christopher realized Grant’s odd behavior dated back to Snowmageddon, when he had heroically rescued Christopher from the girls’ treacherous silver. But he hadn’t noticed anything particular until last week’s afternoon off, when Grant invited him down to the village to take a couple photographs.

“I’m trying to capture the alternate versions of human beings,” Grant explained as they strolled down the side of the road, avoiding the mud as much as possible. In mid-March the ground wasn’t icy anymore, but nor was it dry. “And I need to get away from the Castle a bit. It’s too full of old spells to get a clear shot.”

“Won’t you not be able to see anything with me?” Christopher asked thoughtfully.

Grant glanced down at his feet as he sidestepped a gooey-looking patch of turf. “I, er, thought you might be a sort of control.” His camera was hanging around his neck, and he clutched at it with one hand, as if to keep it safer from the mud. “So I know what it looks like when there aren’t any alternate versions, you know?”

“But how will you know the difference between nothing because I have no other lives and nothing because you aren’t taking the photograph correctly?”

Grant stopped walking a moment to stand up straight and glare up at Christopher. It wasn’t actually very far—he had grown a lot in the last four years, and turned out rather good-looking. Not that Christopher paid mind to that sort of thing. But he was aware that some of the girls down in the village had started casting glances at his friend in the last year, and it was probably because he only a couple inches shorter than Christopher himself, albeit still in the gangly-teenager phase of growth, and his dark brown eyes were warm over a bright smile. Late in the afternoon, he even had a shadow of a beard on his chin, which Christopher would have deemed scruffy if it didn’t accentuate Grant’s strong jawline.

 _Not_ that Christopher noticed that much detail, except maybe in a friendly, fraternal sort of way. Conrad was three years the younger, after all, and from a different world. It was probably Christopher’s duty to look out for his honor or something.

Meanwhile, Grant had said something indignant about Christopher’s lack of belief in his magical photography skills (a lack which Christopher genuinely didn’t have; he always thought it was fascinating how Conrad imbued the camera with preternaturally strong witch sight without even trying.) So Christopher had to pull out of a vague expression and whatever road his thoughts had been wandering down and scramble for an appropriate apology.

But Grant was quiet again after he accepted Christopher’s apology. He wouldn’t make eye contact, and either the afternoon light was doing odd things to Christopher’s vision or Grant was blushing as he looked through the camera’s viewfinder, when they eventually just gave up on the village and took the pictures in an empty field which Grant declared far enough from the Castle. At least the photos turned out all right, as far as Christopher could tell from the negatives—there did seem to be a sort of empty space behind him, as though another person should be standing there. But they had returned to the Castle in awkward silence.

Since then, Christopher had started watching Grant out of the corner of his eye in class, as well as Millie. The sunlight from the window played differently on their heads, coming to rest in Millie’s soft, silky locks but glinting quite sharply off of Conrad’s dark tresses. Several times, Grant’s own curiously distracted glance slipped sideways and their eyes met over Millie’s head, and Christopher found himself looking hurriedly away with a blush creeping up his neck. Then Grant would somehow manage to get out of the classroom far ahead of Christopher and disappear until supper, where he would talk to other people before disappearing again—from wherever Christopher was, at least. Nobody else seemed to notice anything odd about his behavior.

After another week of this awkwardness, Christopher decided he had to bring his concerns to _someone_ , because Grant clearly wasn’t going to talk to him. He settled on Millie, because she’d known Grant longest after himself and was usually sensitive to things like people acting out of the ordinary. Anyway, it would prove that he could be concerned for others—a quality she had accused him of lacking in their last argument, the previous Tuesday. Yes, talk to Millie, cement her approval, and work together to figure out what was wrong with Grant—Christopher had great confidence in his plan.

.

.

Millie was starting to seriously contemplate double-homicide, or at least locking Christopher and Conrad together in a broom cupboard for a couple days. With silver locks. It wasn’t just that they were distractingly attractive—which they were, both of them. Christopher, of course, had always been a tall, aristocratic fashion model. Conrad was nearly as tall and skinny, in an awkward, lanky way, but he looked likely to fill it out with considerably more muscle than Christopher, and he had a shy smile that made Millie want to kiss him and feed him a square meal all at once.

Not that any daydream like that would ever come to fruition. Conrad, she was quite sure, had no interest in girls. Which was fine—she had met men like that in the Temple Infirmary, when she-as-Asheth used to visit to bless the ill. She had learned a lot about this sort of thing in the Infirmary, mostly from the working girls (and some boys) who came in to be treated for the sort of diseases many professional physicians would sneer and leer at. Not that they would speak of such things to the Living Asheth, but Millie…well, Millie had been bored, so even when she wasn’t Blessing, she would sneak in under her strongest invisibility spell and just listen.

But even outside the infirmary, Series Ten was much freer about such things than Twelve, so Millie still wasn’t sure how to proceed in her new home. She _did_ think it was better for Conrad to ask Christopher about his quandary, though she couldn’t deny matchmaking had been part of her motivation as well.

Because the boys were simply idiots. Millie did not exactly mind sitting between two handsome young men every day, but the way they stared at each other over her head, each trying not to be noticed by the other, was starting to get on her nerves. She could always tell when they slipped up and met glances because they would both look away blushing, Christopher from his collarbones to his cheeks and poor Conrad right up to the tips of his ears. She couldn’t imagine how Flavian had failed to notice. Perhaps he was just being deliberately oblivious. Henrietta and Elizabeth had both asked her about it, because she had proved herself the most knowledgeable in such matters in their late-night discussions—which really said a lot about Twelve’s lack of sexual freedom, because Millie could repeat things she’d heard from the prostitutes in Ten but she really didn’t have the faintest idea how to apply any of it herself.  


She couldn’t possibly be as unqualified as Christopher, though, when he strolled into her room one Saturday afternoon and sprawled across half her bed—not _quite_ the half Millie wasn’t occupying—and declared, “I think Grant is angry at me."

Millie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then carefully laid her latest fiction book on her lap, keeping it open to the right page with one hand. “What makes you think that?” she asked in a deliberately surprised tone.

Christopher kindly moved his body off her lower legs and leaned against the wall, somehow managing to slouch and look debonair all at once. He wasn’t entirely dressed, in a vest but no coat, and the top buttons of his shirt were undone. At least it wasn’t a dressing gown—those were a recent addition to his wardrobe, which Millie hadn’t quite managed to appreciate yet.

Christopher waved his hands helplessly in the air. “I haven’t the faintest idea. I might have said—but that can’t be it; he hasn’t been talking to me since Snowmageddon, really. He practically sprints out of class to avoid me.”

Millie was fairly certain she’d seen Christopher get up hurriedly yesterday, presumably to catch Conrad before he left the classroom, then slow as he was distracted by the sight of their friend’s backside as he left the room. Millie had been distracted too. Conrad had worn particularly tight trousers. She had lost some time eyeing Christopher’s profile as well, which looked like it belonged in ancient Roman marble.

The problem, of course, was that Christopher didn’t realize, consciously, just why he kept failing to move quickly enough to talk to Conrad. And Conrad certainly didn’t know that Christopher thought of him that way. Milly wondered dimly whether she oughtn’t be jealous of one or the other—well, of Conrad, mostly, because there was no point in being jealous of Christopher if Conrad wouldn’t be interested in her anyway. If they actually got together, she thought she might be, but Conrad would have to go home in a couple years anyway, and she could wait for Christopher.

She glanced over at him, now leaning forward over his own long legs and staring at her with a rare expression of genuine befuddlement. It sat oddly in his dark enchanter eyes. He was genuinely concerned about Conrad. Millie felt a small smile slip onto her lips. Yes, Christopher was definitely worth waiting for. Though she wasn’t going to let him know that until his head deflated at least a _little_ more.

“I think ‘sprints’ is an exaggeration,” she said to fill the space. “I guess…you have tried talking to him…”

Christopher’s scornful look was back. “That’s the problem,” he drawled with sarcastic patience.

Millie wanted to be delicate, but the endless tiptoeing around was driving her crazy. She put a bookmark in her book and closed it firmly. “Well, Christopher, the thing is, Conrad—“

There was a knock on the doorframe and, as if he’d been summoned like Gabriel, Conrad poked his head in. “Millie?” He saw Christopher on the bed and reddened, withdrawing quickly. “Oh, I can come back later.”

Millie sprang to her feet, jostling Christopher into a bedpost in her haste to get across the room and grab Conrad before he could run away again.

“Not a chance,” she said, holding him tightly by the arm as she pulled him into the middle of the bedroom. She closed the door behind them for good measure, with a gesture of her hand. Then she stood back near the head of the bed, crossed her arms, and realized she still wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Er, hello, Christopher,” said Conrad, blushing up to his ears.

Christopher inclined his head grandly. “Hello, Grant—Conrad.”

Millie sighed. Conversation was clearly up to her. “Conrad, have you been avoiding Christopher?”

Conrad looked around for an escape. “…No?”

Christopher stood, clenching his fists. “Yes, you have! You’ve barely spoken to me for weeks, and I’ve been wracking by brain the whole time but I can’t figure out why!”

Conrad panicked, which in Conrad meant he planted his feet, put his hands behind his back, and glared back at Christopher. “I’ve been busy,” he snapped. His gaze darted sideways to Millie. “I figured you were, too!”

Millie was suddenly aware that, while Christopher was decent but underdressed for company, she, with nothing but a shift under her dress, not even a corset, was certainly no better. It wasn’t irregular wear for either of them on a lazy Saturday afternoon, but no wonder Conrad had blushed.

She ploughed on anyway. “So Christopher, you felt rather neglected by Conrad?” Good grief, now she was a psychiatrist.

Christopher obviously thought the same, from the arch of his eyebrows. Bit rude of him, really, considering he’d all but begged her to mediate. But his gaze was quickly focused back on Conrad. “Well yes, I did!” Pressure built around him, palpable through the Castle’s stifling spells.

“Why would you feel neglected?” Conrad demanded. “You aren’t even interested in me! You’ve got Millie!”

Well that was a bit…

Christopher replied tightly, “I _know_ I’ve got Millie—“

Millie gasped, and uncrossed her arms in fury. Ghosts of two more put their fists on her hips. “Christopher, you are the most presumptuous— What do you mean you’ve _‘got’_ me?"

Guilt flashed through Christopher’s eyes, but he was too deep into the argument to do anything but wave his hand and say airily, “You know. I expect we’ll get married in a couple years, right before Grant goes back to Series Seven.”

He attempted a sort of winning smirk, but Millie had none of it.

Instead of giving an eloquent, infuriated explanation of exactly how much of a domineering ass he was, though, Millie shouted, “Not on your last life!” Then, brimming with indignation and perhaps a little spite—and, all right, a little lust as well—she spun away from Christopher, grabbed Conrad by the elbows, and leaned up to kiss him on the lips.

It started out as quite an angry kiss, but the crackling energy around Millie dissipated as soon as she leaned into Conrad’s warm strength. His mouth had opened slightly out of surprise, and Millie hesitantly let her tongue flick around his lips, moistening them along with her own.

But he drew back at that, and Millie realized his arms were dangling awkwardly in midair, her hands still just above his elbows, as if he didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them, and his muscles (she could feel them against her chest; that was nice) were tense with nerves and panic rather than any kind of excitement.

Millie pulled back too, shame-faced. But the disappointment in Conrad’s eyes, not at her retreat but at himself for being grateful for it, drew a tender smile back to her face.

“Don’t be silly,” she instructed him. “You’re perfectly natural. I’ve met plenty of—” actually, it was probably better not to mention the prostitutes—“men who prefer men.” She dropped his arms, but took one hand in a comforting squeeze.

His wavering smile in return was much more doubtful, and his eyes were fixed over her shoulder—

—on Christopher, of course. Who, Millie saw when she turned, was gaping at them both with such naked outrage and jealousy that she nearly laughed aloud.

Quite cheery and willful all of a sudden, Millie declared, “Oh, all right,” and bounced forward to meet his lips as well, dragging Conrad by the hand.

Kissing Christopher was very different from kissing Conrad. For one thing, and probably most importantly, he responded with enthusiasm, wrapping his arms around her in an instant and—though this might have been because she’d rather barged into him—sitting down on the bed, falling backwards really, with Millie on top of him. His head knocked against the wall a bit, but not very hard, and anyway he had a couple spare lives. So Millie kept paying attention to his hand curled through her hair, and the other sending warmth through the small of her back, and the way their tangling legs were pushing her dress up towards her waist—she should probably mind that, but it left their legs more free to tangle. And where her fingers traced his cheekbone, chased by her lips for a moment before their mouths met hungrily again, as if air was less necessary than the taste of each other’s lips. And really just everywhere she was touching Christopher, as well as everywhere she wasn’t, as the cloud of belligerent magic he’d gathered around him settled into something much lighter that sparkled along their bodies. If Conrad was a lodestone, Christopher was lightning.

Something warm slipped from her hand, though, a steady presence quite unlike Christopher’s blaze, and Millie realized Conrad was trying to sneak away.

She rolled half off Christopher and pushed herself up onto one elbow, to turn and call him back, but Christopher beat her to it.

“I was going to say, Grant,” he said roughly and slightly out of breath, “that even if I, ah, might have the honor of Millie’s affections—“ he glanced up at her and she smiled encouragingly—“I’d still want yours as well.” He pushing himself up onto his elbows as well, forcing Millie to just give up and sit up on his legs. “I mean,” he coughed, staring earnestly up at Conrad. “I’d still want you.” He coughed again, as self-conscious as they were ever likely to see him.

Conrad took a step back toward them. His lips were quivering, on the verge of either turning abruptly down or splitting into a wide grin. “Really?”

Millie rolled her eyes. “ _Yes_.” She reached out to grab his hand again and pull him onto the bed. At the same time, Christopher’s serious expression broke down into an exasperated grin and his eyes flicked up and down Conrad’s body. “Absolutely,” he said, just as fervently, and beckoned the younger man forward. With a little magic behind the gesture, it was much more effective than Millie’s vague tug, and Conrad positively tripped—grinning—on top of the both of them.

.

And the rest, dear reader, I will leave to your own contemplation.

 

 


End file.
